As the only company that has released a tablet that has managed to take a dent out of Apple's iPad sales (the Kindle Fire accounts for 22% of U.S. tablet sales), many people are looking forward to seeing what Amazon's next generation Kindle Fire has in store. The first generation Kindle Fire made a splash with a $199 price point and 7" form-factor, but Amazon is looking to expand the lineup’s appeal with second generation the devices.

The first up is a refreshed 7" model. It keeps the same look as the original, but includes a faster processor and twice the RAM. In addition, the price has been slashed from $199 to $159. It's hard to argue with faster performance and a cheaper price tag.

But the big announcement is the Kindle Fire HD. This new tablet is available with a 7" (1280x800) or 8.9" IPS display (1920x1200). The 8.9" Kindle Fire HD is only 8.8mm thick and weighs just 1.25 pounds. Powering the Kindle Fire HD is a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos even took at a dig at the Apple iPad by announcing that the Kindle Fire HD comes with dual stereo speakers that feature Dolby Digital Plus technology. The Kindle Fire HD also includes dual Wi-Fi antennas an MIMO compared to a single Wi-Fi antenna on the iPad and Nexus 7. Bezos says this allows its Kindle Fire HD tablets to outperform all competitors in Wi-Fi bandwidth tests.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9" showing "FreeTime"

Another interesting feature that Amazon is introducing with the Kindle Fire HD is FreeTime. FreeTime allows a parents to setup profiles on the device so that children will only have access to "kid-friendly" content while the grownups can still have access to entire spectrum of content. The profiles will also allow parents to limit how much time their child plays on the device.

The Kindle Fire HD will be available with 16GB of storage capacity and also includes HDMI out and Bluetooth. The 7" model will be priced at $199 (ships September 14) while the 8.9" model rings in at $299 (ships November 20).

Amazon also announced one additional member to the Kindle Fire HD family. The Kindle Fire HD LTE 4G model is priced at $499, includes 32GB of storage, and comes with an amazing data package. For just $49.99/year, you get 250MB of bandwidth per month, 20GB of cloud storage space, and a $10 in Appstore credit. Can you say game changer?

The Kindle Fire HD LTE 4G will ship on November 20.

For those that prefer Amazon's more traditional line of e-readers, the company also today announced the Kindle Paperwhite. The Kindle Paperwhite features a higher resolution screen with 212 ppi (62 percent more pixels than previous model) that offers whiter whites and blacker blacks.

Kindle Paperwhite

The capacitive touch screen device is 9.1mm thick, weighs just 7.5 ounces, and had an 8-week battery life. It costs $119 and will ship on October 1. The Kindle Paperwhite 3G will also ship on October 1 for $179.

Even further done the e-reader ladder is the standard "Kindle". Amazon has updated the Kindle to include new fonts and crisper text, and has dropped the price from $79 to $69. It will ship on September 14.

I totally agree that the iPad 2 is made moot by the new Fire. The iPad 3 is where you get all the benefits of hardware and the software ecosystem, but if you don't want to spend the cash then there are now excellent options in the $200 range. As I said, the new Fire is great and it is going to bury everything else in its price range. Nexus 7 is going to get killed by this thing.

High-DPI displays are everything in a smartphone or tablet. It is a necessity for something you are holding only a foot away from your eyes.

Real performance is still there (the 2011 A5 was better than the Tegra 3 that is still common in Android tablets today) and applications are definitely there. The main differentiator is price. If you're not getting that amazing 2048x1536 display (and it is a HUGE reason for many people to buy it) and apps don't really matter, then it makes sense to me to drop down significantly to the new Fire. It slots in there perfectly.

I had a very hard time recommending the old Fire (despite the benefits of its vertical integration) because the hardware was trash. The new one fixes the hardware issues. Samsung/Asus/Acer tablets are pretty much hosed, there is no way they can keep up on price with comparable specs. I liked the Nexus 7 but I see no reason to recommend it now.

Even by late 2011 standards the Kindle Fire hardware was slow, slow enough where there was significantly choppier UI/application chop and much slower browser performance compared to other tablets.

That said, it far and away the cheapest tablet out there, the first to nail $200.

Now the specs are much better, and it is partly possible because there are going to be ads displayed on the device. That combined with a willingness to make almost no money on the device allows for much better specs at a lower price than other OEMs in the same range.

I'm surprised that the Fire only being sold with ads isn't being discussed. That detail kind of flew under the radar. It makes great sense for Amazon. The Fire lock screen is basically a targeted billboard for Amazon that you carry around with you, pretty genius.

I agree, high res screens are awesome and I love Apple for ushering in the new Era of higher res... But at some poinmt, enough is enough. an 8.9 inch 1920x200 is reduclously high. I have the same res in my 24 inch LCD at home. In no way is the iPad's 9.7 inch 2048x1536 better. Both are insanely high.

Your entire argument is silly. No one can deny the benefits of the Apple ecosystem, yet you and other people with spec-driven goggles do. Even though Apple's specs are still holding well. Furthermore, it isn't much to say that something NEW is potentially better than something OLD (even on the merit of just specs, which is again, silly). This is tech, this is competition. It isn't even out yet lol.

Trolls will troll with their ignorant Apple hatred though, they just don't get it. And no I'm not saying Apple stuff is the best, that's strictly subjective, I'm saying you gotta be pretty stupid, or choose to be ignorant to not see what it has going for it, what it's had going for it, and why even Apple is very aggressive in their Tablet entries.

"Your entire argument is silly. No one can deny the benefits of the Apple ecosystem"

It's more about what the Apple ecosystem gives you over the Android ecosystem and is it worth the extra $$$. No, not to me, not even close. If on a 10 scale the Apple app store/ecosystem is a 9, then Androids is a 6 or 7. It's not like a 10-0 split there.

Look at it this way. There isn't anything you can do with an iPad/ that you cant do with an Android tablet. Most AAA apps are on both platforms and there are comparable apps that do anything on both platforms. For the price of 1 iPad, you can get a Kindle fire 8.9 inch 1920x1200 and a 7 inch 1280x800 - both of which can accomplish the exact same goals as the iPad. Most people use tablets for internet, email, and whatever apps they need. If you consider that "ignorant apple hatred" then so be it. For what its worth, I do see what Apple has going for it, and what it's had going for it . My whole point here is that advantage is gone.

No, you still don't get it. It is not equal on both sides just being able to say an app is on both platforms. If you think about, Apple has never really been the company where you can do something on their products and not on others. Their model has always been, HOW you do things.

In regards to an app being on both, there's still significantly more support on iOS ecosystem than there is on Android. Then just think about how buggy apps can be on Android, I feel for them though because they have to cater to so many different specs, nevertheless this is a big deal and is easily noticeable.

1920x1200 is probably the ideal resolution for ~10" tablets since the typical viewing distance is just outside of the pixel discernment range. Additional pixels beyond the ability to see them are wasted and only require a more powerful GPU and lower battery life.

Before the new iPad resolution meant nothing in a tablet, meaning iPad2 had the worst pixel density of any 10" tablet. After the new iPad comes out resolution is the most important thing in the world.Nobody can see the flaw in this type of reasoning?